At the first let me say BIG THANKS for briefly but “all that you need” answer!
And for patience, because I thinking this is one of the most asking question on that forum (and on FreeBSD.org also). :) Take my respect!
@andyrh said in How pfSense utilize multicore processors and multi-CPU systems ?:
@sergei_shablovsky Your question from 2/2021 is slightly flawed. The CPU package count is not relevant. Cores (threads) and frequency are relevant.
Because most of all rack servers are 2xCPU packaged, this is something like default for users that prefer own rackmounted hardware.
But for Netgate original brand firewalls - may be this is not true default because most of their Motherboards (I remember NetGate using LANNER MB in early models, but after switch to SuperMicro, is this still true using SuperMicro?) are 1 x CPU package. And in this case there are only one ability to increasing performance when You bandwidth grow - more speedy processor with a large Cache 3 level.
For tasks that are single threaded frequency is what you want, for tasks that are multi threaded you want enough threads to allow the concurrency you need.
So, may be great idea for NetGate create some reference table for users that prefer own hardware, in which some characteristics (single/multithreaded, requirements of CPU frequency, memory) linked to main services and additional packages (like Snort, Suricata, etc...) that require much system resources?
To help choose right NICs and server platform.
Reasonable ?
The result is a balance based on your goals. If single threaded tasks are your number one concern, you will lean to frequency at the expense of cores. However if you have several packages and many NICs, you will lean to core count at the expense of frequency because you will have many threads needing to execute at the same time and it is more efficient for the computer to have many threads vs having to share.
The initial question in this topic combine inside two:
how FreeBSD core manage threads between CPU packages in multi-CPU packages systems (2, 4), because bus between CPUs packages involved, NUMA/non-NUMA/chipkill memory configuration in BIOS, etc...;
how different packages/services in pfSense depends on NICs configuration and tuning, CPUs packages numbers and frequencies;
I hope that helps.
Really, thank You.
